"Composing for Digital Publication: Rhetoric, Design, Code" by Douglas Eyman and Cheryl E. Ball
Abstract (Lorenzo Martino) This article discusses the current state of digital publications and that in today's world, nearly all publications are digitally composed. However, the authors argue that despite the current takeover of digital composition, there has been an overall lag in "discussions of composing processes and writing pedagogies" that include digital composition as a key element (Eyman and Ball, p. 114). The authors believe that the reason for this lag is that key elements of digital composition such as code and design have not been fully integrated into the composition discussion. The authors claim there are three layers of digital composition: rhetoric, design, and code. Key Concepts Rhetoric - Authors who compose digital media must consider the use, usability, and usefulness of their text. "'Use' focuses on how the audience/user will make use of the webtext or digital object; 'usability' speaks to the degree to which the users’ needs have been taken into account in the design of a text; and 'usefulness' (in the academic context) is tied to the disciplinary networks in which a text is designed to circulate (that is, to what extent is it useful to readers?)" (Eyman and Ball, p. 115). Design - Authors who compose digital media must take into account how it is designed, especially in terms of style and organization. The media must be designed so that it "make(s) conceptual models visible, including showing required or alternative actions and their possible results, and should do so easily and naturally for the user... Webtext authors embrace design so that the conceptual model they use is relevant to the text’s purpose and media" (Eyman and Ball, p. 115). Code - Code is of the utmost importance in digital composition. According to the authors, "code is the underlying structure that has to function properly in order for a digital text to achieve its design goals and support the rhetorical functions of usability and accessibility" (Eyman and Ball, p. 116). Code is directly related to the use/usability/usefulness of the text, as it answers such questions, "such as knowing which graphic formats are most effective for a given image, which encoding schemes will be most usable for delivering audio and video via the Web, and the importance of including transcripts and technical devices that ensure accessibility to the greatest number of users" (Eyman and Ball, p. 116). Example Twitter and Facebook Twitter and Facebook are both forms of digital media that, on the surface are very similar forms of digital composition but are actually very different. With regards to the rhetoric aspect, Twitter and Facebook have different uses and are marketed towards different audiences (Twitter is for quick social/news consumption while Facebook is more detailed). Therefore, due to those differences, Twitter and Facebook are designed and coded extremely differently. Critical Conversation According to Google Scholar, the article has been cited 10 times. Keywords Rhetoric Design Code Citations Eyman, Douglas; Ball, Cheryl E. “Composing for Digital Publication: Design, Code, and Rhetoric.” Composition Studies. Spring2014, Vol. 42 Issue 1, p114-117.